Roots & Relics

05/26/2026

Roots & Relics Los Angeles premiere June 4th at the New Media Film Festival!

05/20/2026

ROOTS & RELICS is going to Austria!! Happy to announce we have been selected to screen at the History - International Film Festival Austria in October. So excited to keep growing this project and celebrating history 😎😎

04/08/2026

Phrenology was a 19th-century pseudoscience that claimed the shape and contours of a human skull could reveal their character, intelligence, and mental abilities. It was a bad idea that paved the way for something far more sinister.

03/06/2026

03/03/2026

Share your Relics with Us! We want to hear the stories behind your most unique family heirlooms! Fill out the form here: https://bit.ly/46EmU8m

03/02/2026

Matt & Katie Avant joined SirkTV on the Fest Track at Dances With Films to share their experience producing Roots & Relics and discuss the importance of preserving family legacy through storytelling.

https://www.sirktv.com/irfests/fest-track-on-sirk-tv-film-interview-roots-relics-pilots-dances-with-films-ny-new-york-new-york

02/28/2026

Through the 1920s-1950s, in a small studio in Heber Springs, Arkansas, Mike Disfarmer quietly captured one of the most honest visual records of small-town America.

Farmers in work clothes. Young soldiers before shipping out. Children standing stiff and serious. Families marking a moment that mattered enough to spend 25 or 50 cents to preserve it.

Disfarmer had a style that feels modern, stripped down, unfiltered. Including his own “selfie”. Pictured below.

What struck us most at the exhibit were the names they don’t know. Many of the faces in those photographs are unidentified.

Think about that.

This was a time when having your photograph taken required intention, money, and a trip into town… these men, women, and children stepped into the light of that slanted glass roof studio to be remembered. And yet, for many of them, their names are gone.

This is something we talk about often with Roots & Relics: Artifacts survive. Images survive. But stories disappear unless someone preserves them.

02/22/2026

This is why it’s fun poking around antique stores and flea markets. For bizarre items like this hilarious treasure.

When baby Joey Stivic was born on the classic old show “All in the Family”, it was treated like a national event. And they really wanted some licensed merch to go with it. So they made an anatomically correct doll, produced by the Ideal Toy Company.

It’s funny. It’s strange. It’s very 1970s. What weird old toys do you have lying around?

02/17/2026

Matt & Katie Avant recently joined the Filmmaker Mixer podcast to talk about their documentary series ROOTS & RELICS™, and the growing movement to inspire families to rediscover, preserve, and share their unique stories.

From forgotten homesteads to treasured family heirlooms, Matthew and Katie Avant believe history lives in the objects we choose to keep.In this episode, we s...